When Staples Offers Items for a Penny, New York Buys Kleenex by the Pound

Offices Order Products 'Up the Yin-Yang'; The 200 Cans of Dust-Off Nobody Wants

By

Mark Maremont

July 23, 2014 10:30 p.m. ET

Staples Inc. made the State of New York quite a promise: Buy your office supplies from us, and we'll sell you a bunch of things for a penny apiece. This unleashed a rush on the retailer as government offices and qualifying organizations across the state gobbled up the one-cent items.

A Brooklyn charity benefiting disabled people ordered 240,000 boxes of facial tissue and 48,000 rolls of paper towels, according to documents obtained...